The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1887-12-17
Moc4 ED BY 4 COUGAR.

R.o.t vw..L. I Upon ale FursusEss ~
In the Cent?. ! Park menagerie is
maon;sc.nt sna., men Of the cougar,
or mountain lion. nv o.he "n,
noon two gentlemen ; 'oou " ''o 0"s !;
watching the graceful anima' a. -
restlessly moved from on ena NV
cage to the other with ryth. " a. ona ID
cision. Last winter" 50. one;
was shooting in the Sierra T. s.om
mountains, in Mexico. where. iho4
the signs and tracks in the sant Wv
toned canyons. these animals y y
very abundant. At night one won. y
sit upon the mesa above our camp II
give out hymns for the coyotes to sing.
1t was an %unearthly yell that made the
goosehesh come on the top Of your
head. and led you to even wish to be
back in the land of hand organs. My
guide. Jack Bridges, who used to be
with Custer. would sit up in his blank
cts and say: GO it when you can, for
we are going to do you up
For days we looked for the home
OF the lion. and, although we could see
his footprints, which appeared like
very big tours Of clubs, he did SO much
rock walking that it was impossible to
track him to his cave. One day we
met a Mexican smuggling outfit, and
the Captain told us that in a canyon
several miles from our camp there was
a hermit lion, whom he never failed to
got a glimpse Of when taking the trail
that way. For years back he had
missed seeing him, but Of late he had
noticed that the lion was lame, pro ba-
bly, from having a cactus point
into his foot, or from jumping too
much out of the way Of earthquakes.
The smuggler described SO accurately
where the lion hung out that we went
owe the next morning to get a shot
"The canyon was just about the
worst place you cver saw. The bottom
was a jungle of scrub live oak, so
dense that we had to crawl on our
hands and knees in many places. The
sides were volcanic rock, Jagged and
broken with holes and crevices. Jack
was on ahead. and l at his heels, when
we came face to face with the lion,
who vas sitting in the mouth of his
cave trying to stare us out Of counte-
nance. He gave one scratch, and then
his long tail disappeared around the
corner Of a big bowlder, just as We
got sight of him. Neither had a chance
to shoot. Half y minute later we saw
him 60 limping up the side of the di-
vide, and when he reached the top he
squatted and looked complaccntly
down at us. He was p%rovokingly out
Of shot, and he knew it as we'll as we
did.
''Thcn began one of the most scien-
tific hunts on record. We were both
as mad as hornets. Up hill and down
dale we followed that brute until dark.
He was never over one thousand yards
away, but never in shot. He would
run, and limp, and squat, blink at us,
wiggle his tail at us and seem to coax
us to follow him. = lcvon miles we
went in a bee line from camp. and it
took lis until next morning to get
back. We then set to work to put up
a job on that lion. We went over to
the canyon where he lived, killed n
whitc-tailed deer. took his paunch,
and trailed it in q circle around the
canyon. The carcass we then hung
high on a limb. five feet out from.the
trunk. Then we cut up thei deer
liver into thirteen bats, for luck, aad
doscd each with strychnine. We also
rubbed the poison into the paunch,
which we left ut the bottom of the
tree.
1--WE smiled as we walked back to
camp. and Jack told mo of III Apache
Indian ovcr at Montezuma mining
camp who would tan the lions hide
with dcer's brains for one dollar l
kept awake that night for two hours,
thinking whom l would give it to, or
if l would keep 1t myself. About sum
rise we struck the lions canyon. When
we got near the deer tree we expected
to pick up the lion every step. But we
didn't. He had been there, though.
He had eaten up the thirteen poisoned
bats, got away with some Of the
paunch, climbed up the tree, stretched
himself out, and eaten hunks as big
as Derby hats out of the decr's carcass.
I'VE spent the day in looking for
the dead lion, but could not find him.
When VIC turned to go home we sud-
denly spied his nibs squatting down
on top of the divide winSing at us. At
Ell Paso l told a merchant this story,
and showed him what was left of the
poison. He said that the strychnine
we had bought from the smugglcrs
was only q kind of flour, of which u
barrelful would not fazc q chicken,
and that he ought to know. for he put
IN tho stuff himsnlf IN y SIM.